


I'll Mend Myself Before It Gets Me

by Andromytta



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 500 subarus, Delusion Induced Self Harm, Delusions, M/M, Married Castiel/Dean Winchester, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Obsessive Behavior, Obsessive Castiel (Supernatural), Psychosis, Self-Harm, Writer Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 07:56:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20756960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andromytta/pseuds/Andromytta
Summary: Dean Smith was one of the hottest horror writers of his generation. He was so hot in fact, that his publishing house was waiting with bated breath for his latest creation. The only problem was the story was eating him alive. Literally. Dean was one of those writers who was completely consumed by whatever he was working on. In fact, if it wasn’t for his devoted husband, Castiel, Dean would easily forget to bathe, sleep, and even eat. He was the only person who could bring Dean back from the brink, back to the real world when his story sought to devour him.As Dean’s fame grew, he spent more and more time alone in his home office, more and more time in his imaginary world. Castiel started to feel less needed, less loved. This time, Dean’s descent into madness would have disastrous consequences. The shadow beast that was meant to be the monster in Dean’s latest novel became frighteningly real to Dean. He’d have completely lucid moments, but more and more he was battling the shadow monster, until the inevitable happened. Dean had his final battle with the beast, with disastrous results.





	I'll Mend Myself Before It Gets Me

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SPN Dark Fic Big Bang. With fantastic art by PassionPhantom!
> 
> Special thanks to my beta, Amyoatmeal, who's help was invaluable in bringing cohesion to this mess!
> 
> Remember, this is a dark fic, so please heed the tags and stay safe. If I did miss any tags/triggers, let me know and I will fix it!

** **

**Prologue**

During high school, they were inseparable: Dean-and-Cas, Cas-and-Dean. One was never without the other. Castiel spent more time at Dean’s house than he did his own. Bobby and Ellen, Dean’s parents, even thought of Cas as their own. Dean’s little sister Jo was like Cas’s kid sister. No two people were ever closer.

They went to college together, they shared a dorm. Dean majored in creative writing and Castiel studied Advanced Chemistry and Theoretical Math. When their relationship made the inevitable transition from friends to lovers, not much had changed. The two men still spent almost every minute together, Cas was still a part of Dean’s family.

However, almost imperceptibly, a change did overtake Castiel. He became completely devoted to his lover, to the point that taking care of Dean took over his life. When Dean announced he wanted to become a full time writer, even if he had to starve to do it, Castiel suddenly stopped studying math theory in favor of accounting. When they married after graduation, Cas took a job well below his skill set at a top accounting firm in order to be able to completely support Dean’s dream.

***

When Dean was writing, it was as if the monsters of his novels took over his mind. He could get lost in his fictional world for hours or days, forgetting to eat, forgetting to sleep. The only person who could bring Dean back to the real world was his husband. Castiel cherished his role as Dean’s anchor. Nothing gave him more pleasure than pulling Dean out from his own head and bringing him back to life. It was his raison d’etre, his reason for being, the only thing he lived for.

As Dean’s fame grew, it was as if he didn’t need Cas as much. His agent, his editor, his publisher, his fans, Dean had to divide his attention amongst all of them. When he was working on his second novel, anything from a call from the publisher to a gushing fan letter seemed to bring Dean out of his writer’s stupor. Castiel felt him slipping away, and knew he had to do something about it.

When it was time for Dean to start his third novel...things changed again.

* * *

  
Words, words, words. 

Words were just not happening. He could feel the story in the back of his mind, see the creature in the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t bring it to life. Which was a problem, because the beast demanded to live, demanded sacrifice, demanded Dean. 

The beast had already devoured his sleep, his meals, his life. There it was, just barely in his periphery; this time he was going to grasp it. He reached out, towards the shadows in his dimly lit office when the trilling of his phone yanked him back to reality.

“Hello,” he answered gruffly.

“Hi, Dean? This is Anna Milton from Zachariah Adler’s office here at Sandover Publishing. He tasked me with checking in on you, to see if there was an update on the manuscript?”

Dean Smith was one of the hottest up and coming horror writers of his generation. Some were evening dubbing him the next Stephen King. If only he could finish his third novel…which was what Anna was calling him about.

Dean would never admit that the sound that came out of his mouth was a snarl. “Listen, _ Anna _, you can tell Zachariah that I could update my manuscript a lot easier without these twice daily interruptions!”

There was dead silence on the line for several minutes, long enough that Dean thought Anna had hung up on him. Then, as if she were talking to a startled animal, Anna responded. “Dean, we haven’t heard from you in well over a month and we certainly haven’t been calling twice a day.”

Dean pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. That just couldn’t be right. He could have sworn he talked to Zachariah just this morning, not a month ago. Then, he stared at the electronic calendar on his desk. Sure enough, it was over a month later than he expected it to be. He put his phone back to his ear, and said, a little dazed, “Oh yeah, must have lost track of time. Listen, Anna, I should probably get back to writing now. I’ll be in touch.” He hung his phone up, feeling like he was moving through quicksand.

When he turned his attention back to his computer, all he saw was his cursor blinking angrily at him, as if it was accusing him of being a bad writer, of leaving it hanging. “Yeah, what do you know?” He said to the cursor as he slammed his laptop closed and dropped his head on top of it.

As he drifted off into what could barely be called “sleep,” the beast was waiting for him. The cabin was dark, dank, and it smelled like death. There she was, his protagonist, Claire, she had become like his own daughter (which was a laugh, at this point Dean didn’t even know if he still had a husband, let alone a child). She was hanging from the ceiling, her long blonde hair matted with blood, fodder for the beast. The beast was in every corner, surrounding them. It was everywhere, and yet, it was nowhere.

Despite the acclaim, Dean thought his first two novels were dreck. He felt he was lauded simply because his protagonist was a young woman who never once was a damsel in distress. She hunted vampires and werewolves and other supernatural creatures. This latest one was supposed to surpass the first two, with his most insidious beast yet. The beast demanded its due. While it remained elusive, Dean knew this time, his hero would not make it out alive.

Just as the beast was about to come out of the shadows and attack, as Dean was about to lay eyes on it for the first time, the dream shifted and suddenly his protagonist was being run over by 500 Subarus, one right after the other.

The pounding on his office door finally jerked him awake. “What the actual fuck?” he muttered to himself. He had no idea where that image sprang from. “Coming,” he said towards the door as he pried himself out of his cushy desk chair to unlock the door. He opened the door to find his husband standing there with a tray, holding an extra-large bowl of tomato rice soup, a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches, and a tall glass of iced tea.

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean said as he swung the door open to allow the other man to pass. “This all looks great, but I’m not actually hungry.”

“Dean, you haven’t eaten in a week. You need to eat,” Castiel said reasonably.

Dean looked at him, confused. “What are you talking about? I ate this morning. Two chili cheese dogs with a side of chili cheese fries, remember?”

Cas sighed. “Dean, that was dinner last week, and it was the only thing I could convince you to eat… and you immediately vomited.”

“What are you talking about? I haven’t vomited since high school. Vomit free since ‘93, remember?” Dean asked with a small smile, trying to elicit one from his husband.

Castiel frowned at him. “Dean, do you really not remember?”

“Cas, what are you talking about? I remember eating, _ this morning _, and I did not throw up.”

Cas’s frown deepened. “I’m worried about you, Dean. You don’t remember eating a week ago, and your publisher just called, concerned that you’re losing time. They said you accused them of calling twice a day? Dean, you haven’t spoken to anyone from Sandover in over a month!”

Dean took the tray from Cas and set it down on the end of his desk, then he put his hands on the other man’s shoulders and looked into his blue eyes. “Listen, Cas, I’m fine. Really, I am. I just gotta get a hold of this creature and I’ll be fine. Just get me a couple of extra-large Monsters and I’ll be good to go.”

“You’re the monster expert,” Cas replied, deadpan.

“Ha ha, very funny. I just need the jolt of energy. You know caffeine helps my writing.”

Dean knew his husband couldn’t resist him when he looked him in the eyes. Especially when he drew his eyebrows together just slightly and added a bit of pleading to his green orbs. He was right.

“Ok, fine,” Cas relented. “But only if you eat something. If there is still food on this tray when I get back, no Monster for you!”

“Fine.”

As Cas left the room, he hit the switch to turn on the overhead light, filling the room with brightness. Dean squinted and clenched his eyes tight against it. He stumbled over to the switch to turn the light out, then went back to his desk to carry the tray of food over to the coffee table in front of the loveseat that sat against the wall perpendicular to his desk. He sank into the well-worn loveseat and, leaning over, inhaled the scent of the food in front of him. Immediately, he had to fight back the urge to vomit.

What Dean didn’t know was what was in his soup. Cas knew the only way to get Dean back, get his husband completely dependant on him again, was to drive him so far into his own head that he, and he alone could bring Dean back. With his background in chemistry, and the apothecary on the first floor of his office building, Cas had formulated a plan. He’d started spiking Dean’s food with Diphenhydramine, an antihistamine known to cause psychosis in predisposed people, and his already tenuous hold on reality would shift, maybe even enough that he would need Cas again. It started slowly at first, but eventually Cas was dumping pill after pill into his husband’s food. He justified it, knowing he had to do whatever he could just to bring his husband back to him. 

Dean eventually managed to take a small bite of the soup before the shadows started to move. They played in the soft light of Dean’s desk lamp, beckoning, promising to reveal themselves. Something seemed to skitter out from under the coffee table, and Dean dropped to the floor to crawl under the table after it. He crawled to the furthest corner of the room, where dark velvet curtains covered the picture window.

Dean’s office had picture windows on two walls. His desk sat against one, where he could stare out the window while he was seated at his desk. The other was across the room from the loveseat with no furniture obscuring it, so Dean could sit and watch the world outside while he waited for inspiration. Dark, heavy curtains hung over both currently, and it was under those curtains where the beast was hiding. At least, Dean could have sworn it ducked under this curtain.

When Cas returned with the energy drinks, he found Dean huddled in a ball in that corner, the curtain wrapped around him, his eyes fixed and staring. Castiel carefully unwound the curtain from around Dean’s form and shook him gently, whispering soothing words in his ear. When Dean came out of his stupor, it was with a piercing scream. It took more coaxing and even more soothing words before Cas finally calmed Dean enough to lead him back to the loveseat. He was practically catatonic. Cas fed him the now lukewarm soup, and even though Dean was going through the motions of eating, Cas knew he wasn’t really there, wasn’t tasting the soup, likely wasn’t even aware that he was being fed at all.

This wasn’t a totally new phenomenon for Castiel. Dean frequently would get lost in his head when he was writing. But it had never been this bad before. While it was unusual for Dean to forget about the real world while in the midst of storytelling, he never totally lost touch with it. While he’d often lose a few minutes to a couple of hours of time, he would never lose days and weeks. The grip this story, this “beast” as he called it, had on Dean was like nothing Cas had ever seen before. Even worse was when he went to Dean’s desk to find no trace of a manuscript. Writing down whatever it was that he saw when he went away like that was usually the thing that kept Dean anchored in the real world. If nothing was being written, then what was happening to Dean?

That was a question Castiel was not ready to contemplate. Instead, he laid Dean down on the loveseat. Even curled up as he was, it barely fit his frame, but Cas was worried it would be worse if Dean came out of his current state in a different room, so instead of carting him to their bedroom, he just pulled the handmade afghan off of the back of the loveseat and covered Dean with it. With one last, longing look at his husband, Cas gathered the remnants of dinner and left the room.

As for Dean, he had returned to that dark, dank cabin in the middle of nowhere. She was still hanging there, helpless, hopeless. _ I can save her. I have to save her. _He thought to himself. But he couldn’t will himself to move from his hiding place. Instead, he just watched. He watched as she dangled there, her toes just barely touching the floor, her clothes little more than rags hanging on her body. That was when Dean knew he was no longer inside of his own head. He never went for the gratuitous showing of skin. Not that he was against it, it’s just not was his novels were about. Again, he thought about rescuing her, but again he was unable to move. Moments later, the beast emerged from the shadow. No, it was a shadow. Being a shadow didn’t stop it from having teeth and claws, didn’t stop it from using its teeth and claws on the young woman. Dean watched as it tore her to shreds. He couldn’t move, and he couldn’t look away. Only once it was too late did he emerge from hiding, running towards the beast, shouting “NO!”

The beast merely grinned at him, displaying all of its pointed, shadowy teeth. It raised one hand and pointed a sharp, shadowy finger at him. “You’re next,” it said with a snarl before fading back into the shadows from whence it came.

When Dean came back to this world, his entire body ached from being curled up on the tiny loveseat. His throat hurt, and his mouth tasted like he hadn’t brushed his teeth in a week. Of course, the way things had been going lately, he probably hadn’t. He found a tall glass of water, with the ice still intact, and a bottle of ibuprofen sitting on the coffee table and he knew Cas had been checking up on him pretty regularly, probably refreshing the water as needed.

Dean rubbed his hands over his face. He couldn’t believe what he saw. His protagonist, his baby, his girl who he’d watched grow from a scared teenager to strong young woman was dead. What kind of novel would that be, where the main character died? The tears started slipping down his face without his bidding. Before he knew it, he was running a handkerchief over his eyes to dry his tears. It was only then that he remembered the threat. The beast was coming after him next; and since it was inside his own head, Dean had nowhere to hide.

Before he could contemplate that further, his phone trilled loudly in the dead silence of the room. He quickly swallowed down the glass of water and a handful of ibuprofen before answering. 

It was his sister, Jo. “Hey, Dweeb. Me and Sam are going rollerblading this afternoon. You should come.”

“No thank you. I’m still traumatized by the idea of my kid sister and best friend dating. I definitely don’t want to witness it,” Dean replied, but he was smiling as he said it.

“Oh, come ooon,” Jo said, putting just the right amount of whine into her voice. The right balance, and Dean couldn’t say no. Too little and he just wasn’t moved, too much and he usually hung up on her.

He was wavering, sort of. “I-I can’t.” Dean was determined to stay strong in the face of his pleading little sister. “I have way too much work to do.”

“But Cas said you haven’t been out of your office in over a month, let alone out of the house. Isn’t that novel of yours finished yet?”

“Oh, so Cas put you up to this?”

Jo immediately became contrite. “He’s just worried about you. We all are.”

“I’m fine, Jo.” Although, by the way he stretched out the word “fine,” it was clear that he wasn’t.

So, Jo switched up tactics. “I’m sure you are. But look, just come to the party with us. You and Cas. It will be like a double date. The sun and fresh air could be good for you…jump start your brain, get you over the writer’s block…”

Dean knew his kid sister well enough to know that she wouldn’t relent until he agreed. Of course, just because he agreed didn’t mean he would show up, and he had no intention of doing so. Why put the people he loved in danger when he was being stalked by a shadow beast? It was bad enough that Cas lived in the same house with him. If only Dean could figure out a way to send his husband away until he managed to defeat the beast. But that was a battle to wage later. For now, he needed to get his sister off of the phone so he could focus.

“Good idea, Jo. We’ll be there. What time did you want to meet up?”

“Two hours, Golden Gate Park. Be there!”

“We will. Bye.” Dean abruptly hung up. He figured Jo probably didn’t believe he’d actually be there, but if she kept him on the phone long enough, he knew he’d eventually give in, and he couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that. But maybe, just maybe, he could at least send Cas to meet them, then he’d be able to confront the beast without endangering anyone else.

Of course, Cas was having none of that. He even ignored it when Dean insisted it was for everyone else’s safety that he not leave his office. Cas led Dean out of his office, and the minute he was out of his cocoon, his demeanor changed. Instead of insisting on dim, soft lights, as he usually did, he asked Cas to turn on every light in the house. Despite being concerned for his safety, Dean refused to let Cas get further than arm’s length away from him. When Cas recommended that Dean take a shower, he refused to get in until Cas promised to stay in the room with him.

The only good thing about the park was that the sun was high in the sky, dissipating all shadows. No shadows meant that no shadow beast could be hiding in them. That didn’t stop Dean from being on edge and jumpy, clinging to Cas like a lifeline. Dean insisted that their asses stay glued to a bench along the rollerblade trail, where they could keep an eye on Jo and Sam. Still every time a stranger would pass by, Dean would jump, and when someone tapped him on the shoulder to ask for an autograph, Dean almost took her head off with the hunting knife he had hidden in his boot. That was when Cas decided it was time to return home. 

Now that Dean was once again safely ensconced in his office, it was time to focus on finding the beast and eliminating it. Unbeknownst to his friends and family, who only thought he was struggling to finish his novel, Dean’s mission was no longer to put words to the page. It was now to hunt and destroy the shadow beast, to kill it before it killed him. He had managed to stash several blades in and around his desk and it was time to go hunting.

Since he was waiting for it, and looking for it, the beast was not to be found. Frustrated, Dean pushed everything off of his desk. “Everything” included the fountain pen set Cas had given Dean for their anniversary. When he heard it hit the ground, Dean panicked. That was one thing he never wanted to lose, so he dropped to the ground, crawling under his desk to rescue it. As he picked it up and twisted to place the pen back on the desk, Dean saw the beast. Just out of the corner of his eye, it was there, behind the loveseat.

Dean grabbed the knife he had taped to the leg of the desk and lunged after the beast, stabbing it and ripping the knife through it. It didn’t bleed, it didn’t die. It wrapped its clawed hand around Dean’s calf, digging in, drawing blood. Dean hacked at it with his knife, finally causing it to dislodge its grip, and it disappeared. Dean collapsed in the corner behind the loveseat, breathing heavily. His leg was bleeding from four parallel slashes across his calf, through his jeans. He knew he should move, clean up the wounds, warn Cas about the beast, but he couldn’t move from the corner, he was frozen there, eyes unblinking, looking for the beast, knowing it would be back.

That’s how Cas found him when he brought Dean dinner later that evening. He no longer had to knock, having disabled the locks when Dean’s erratic behavior escalated. Despite his unresponsive state, Cas was able to maneuver Dean to the loveseat. He pried the knife from his fingers and propped his injured leg up on the coffee table before going to fetch the first aid kit. Cas briefly considered taking his injured, bleeding, catatonic husband to the emergency room, but rejected the thought. He didn’t know how to explain to the doctors that this was part of Dean’s writing process. Granted, it had never been this extreme, but ultimately, Cas thought doctors and hospitals could be detrimental to Dean’s process, and he didn’t want to make that decision for him, though he did decide it would be a good idea to suggest it to Dean once he was lucid again.

Resigned that this was the best course of action, Castiel simply removed Dean’s jeans and tended to his wounds. As he was cleaning and bandaging his legs, Cas noticed that while he appeared to be staring at nothing, Dean’s eyes still moved rapidly back and forth as if he were dreaming with his eyes wide open. Once again, Cas fed his husband without his consent or his help or interaction. Cas was more than worried about Dean, but this was the best way he knew how to help him, by making sure he stayed nourished and rested. To that end, once he was finished feeding him, he laid Dean down on the loveseat like he had done every day for the last several weeks, and pulled the afghan over him, leaving him to whatever he was watching through his unseeing eyes.

When Dean awoke, he knew Cas had been taking care of him. If the ice water and ibuprofen wasn’t indication enough, he could figure it out from the fact that he was no longer wearing pants, and his wounds had been tended to. He briefly considered feeling embarrassed or ashamed that his husband found him like that, but since he was battling the shadow beast, he figured he had no reason to be ashamed. What he was doing was for the greater good, and he should wear his war wounds proudly, at least, that was what he thought.

Dean looked towards the door and thought about going to Cas, thanking him for all he’d done and maybe apologizing for what he’d been putting the other man through, but the more he looked at the door, the more he felt like he could not leave his office. On the off chance that the shadow beast could follow him, Dean couldn’t bear to leave the room, for everyone’s safety.

That thinking naturally leant itself to the idea that if Dean shouldn’t leave his office, then no one else should come in, so he got up to lock the door. Finding the lock disabled sent Dean into a full-fledged panic attack. He opened the door just enough to stick his head out and started calling for Cas.

Full of righteous concern, Cas flew up the stairs to Dean’s office. “Dean! What’s wrong?”

“Why can’t I lock my door?” Dean asked, voice rife with anxiety.

“Because I disabled the lock,” Cas answered, calmly and rationally.

“But why?” Dean asked, still not opening the door more than necessary, leaving Cas in the hall speaking only to his head.

“Because if I can’t get in, then I can’t take care of you,” Cas said, still keeping his voice steady.

“But then you won’t be safe. I won’t be able to keep you safe. The beast could get out, or attack you when you come in.” Dean was almost muttering to himself, and if Cas hadn’t been standing so close, he might have missed what Dean was saying. Finally, Dean looked up at Cas, determined. “That’s it, Cas, you can’t come in here. Ever. Restore my lock and stay out, ok?”

Cas squinted his eyes and looked at Dean. “Why, Dean? What beast? What are you talking about?”

“The shadow beast, Cas!” Dean said, as if Cas should already know. “You know, the one that killed Claire! I can’t let it kill you too!”

Cas was well and truly confused before things started to become somewhat clear. “Claire? You mean the character in your books? You’re killing her off?”

Frustrated, Dean swung the door open and started gesticulating wildly as he paced around his office. “I didn’t kill her, Cas! The shadow beast did! Haven’t you been listening? The shadow beast, the shadow beast! The same thing that scratched my leg all to hell! How do you think that happened?”

Cas cautiously entered the room behind Dean as he was ranting. “Honestly, Dean, I think you did that to yourself. Your knife, the one you were holding when I found you, it was covered in blood.”

“It was?” Dean asked, as if it was the greatest revelation ever. “I stabbed the beast with it. I didn’t see it bleed. But if there was blood on my knife that means it can bleed. If it bleeds, I can kill it!” Dean continued to pace and gesticulate, but when his ranting devolved into incoherent mumbling, Cas knew Dean was back to wherever it was he went lately. Cas shook his head sadly and left Dean alone, gently closing the door behind him. He had no idea how to help his husband.

With the soft click of the closing door, Dean knew he was alone, could feel how very alone he was. That was when he heard it, the soft skittering along the walls. It was back, the shadow beast came back. Dean was at least relieved that it waited until Cas was safely away before it appeared. Dean plopped down onto the floor where he stood, in the middle of the room, clutching his knife tightly in his hand. For the life of him, he couldn’t remember when or where he picked up the knife, but there it was, in his hand, ready and waiting for the shadow beast to attack. He watched it skulk from corner to corner. Dean was determined, he refused to be afraid anymore, and he wasn’t going to let this beast hurt anyone else that he loved.

“Come on, you son of a bitch! Come at me! What are you scared of?” he shouted towards each corner.

“Dean,” it hissed at him. “Deeeaaan…” It hissed, long, low, and menacing. “I’m coming for you.”

“Yeah, well, come on!”

The thing hissed as it skittered along the floor, heading straight for him. It lunged at him, all shadowy teeth and claws. Dean lashed out with his knife; catching the beast with it just as it’s claws made contact with his skin. Dean slashed and thrashed, he heard the squelch of blood and the chunk of knife hitting muscle and bone. He could feel the blood run down his wrist, see it spatter against the walls. 

This was it, he was finally going to kill the shadow beast! 

Giving the creature a particular hard stab, he felt nothing but satisfaction as his knife sunk into flesh, muscle and bone. Apparently, the creature wasn’t quite done yet, as it inflicted a sharp pain to Dean’s thigh as he continued to stab it. An involuntary scream ripped from his throat. 

“Please, don’t let Cas hear me,” he thought to himself. The last thing he wanted was for the creature to take another victim.

When Castiel heard his husband scream, over and over again, he raced up the stairs and flung the door of his office open with a resounding thud. What he saw chilled him to his very core: his husband flailing around, stabbing and slashing himself with a large serrated knife that looked like something out of one of his novels.

“Dean! No!” Cas shouted as he raced to his husband’s side. Somehow, he managed to wrench the knife from Dean’s clenched fists and toss it aside. He wrapped his arms around Dean just in time for him to collapse against him, a lifeless lump.

Trying to do anything, everything, to save the love of his life, Cas grabbed for the phone on the desk just as he slid to the floor with Dean in his arms. When the 911 operator picked up, all Cas could sob into the phone was that his husband wouldn’t stop bleeding. He told the operator that over and over again, even after she promised that help was on the way.

Cas finally heard the sirens minutes, hours, or days later. Cas lost all concept of time as Dean’s blood seeped into his jeans and tee shirt. Cas sat in the middle of the floor, sobbing and rocking Dean in his arms, yelling to the paramedics that they were upstairs when he heard them in the house. When they made their way into the room, Cas looked at them, pleading, tears shining in his too blue eyes and running down his cheeks. “Save him, please.”

“You need to back away, Sir,” one of them told him as the other one got straight to work on Dean. The one that spoke to Cas managed to keep him out of the way until the one working on Dean looked at his partner and shook his head.

Cas rushed forward. “No! You can’t give up. You have to save him!” He dropped to his knees onto the floor next to the lifeless body of his husband, into the blood that had pooled next to him. He took Dean’s head and cradled it in his lap. “Come on, Dean, wake up. You have to wake up. They won’t take you to the hospital if you don’t wake up.”

The police arrived shortly behind the paramedics, and before Castiel knew what was happening, he was being lifted to his feet and handcuffs were being secured around his wrists. “Wait, what’s going on?” He asked frantically.

A detective, very reminiscent of Jack Webb, said, “Castiel Novak, you are under arrest for the brutal murder of Dean Smith. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer with you during questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for you before any questioning if you wish. If you decide to answer questions without a lawyer present, you have the right to stop answering at any time.”

“What? You think I? I could never. I didn’t do this. I didn’t kill Dean! Dean! Wake up, Dean!” Cas shouted as he was being escorted out by uniformed officers while the detective followed close behind.

As Cas sat in the back of the police car, he rested his head against the window, rain streaming down the glass, and watched as his life was ripped away from him as the car pulled away from his home. “I didn’t do this, I could never do this. Dean is everything to me.”

The sight of the house Castiel shared with the love of his life grew smaller and smaller outside the car window, and as it shrank away from him, so did everything Castiel ever held dear. If he did go to jail, who cared? Perhaps it was just anyway. Perhaps there was more he could have done to bring Dean back from his ever deteriorating mental state. But Dean had always come back to him before. Castiel never expected this time to be any different.


End file.
